German Patent Application No. DE 10 2007 001 367 A1 describes a method and a measuring section for aligning a distance sensor on a vehicle, the measuring section including a straight roadway and a road marker at one end of the roadway or road markers situated on a shoulder delimiting the roadway. A position of a road marker is ascertained and actual data related thereto are stored in a memory. The actual data are compared to setpoint data stored in the memory and, therefore, an alignment of the sensor is determined. If a misalignment is present, the sensor is aligned with the aid of a software-based calibration.
German Patent Application No. DE 10 2011 081 391 A1 describes a method for detecting obstructions in the air surrounding a vehicle, line structures being determined in at least one image area of an image of surroundings of the vehicle in a first step, thereafter a position of a first alignment area of first line structures and a position of a second alignment area of second line structures being determined and, in one further step, obstructions depicted in the image being ascertained, which represent objects located in the vehicle surroundings. In this case, the determination of the alignment point is advantageously carried out on the basis of the detected guardrails of the traveled road, which are recorded with the aid of a video camera mounted in the vehicle. A disadvantage of this method is that, in order to align a sensor which is not a video sensor (for example, a radar sensor), the use of a video sensor is additionally required and the determination of the misalignment of a sensor may not be carried out at any arbitrary time, and this requires a certain minimum amount of time. In addition, a misalignment may be ascertained and a recalibration may be carried out only for sensors which are aligned in parallel to the direction of travel. Vehicle sensors which are installed, for example, on vehicles having an alignment of the sensor main beam direction at a 45° angle or another acute angle, i.e., an angle between 0 and 90°, are unable to carry out this method.